Fenton's Quest eBook

“Yes, that is what every one would tell me,
I daresay,” Gilbert answered impatiently.
“But is there to be no atonement for my broken
life, rendered barren to me by this man’s act?
I tell you, Sir David, there is no such thing as pardon
for a wrong like this. But I know how foolish
this talk must seem to you: there is always something
ridiculous in the sufferings of a jilted lover.”

“Not at all, my dear Fenton. I heartily
wish that I could be of use to you in this matter;
but there is very little chance of that; and, believe
me, there is only one rational course open to you,
which is, to forget Miss Nowell, or Mrs. Holbrook,
with all possible assiduity.”

Gilbert smiled, a melancholy incredulous smile.
Sir David’s advice was only the echo of John
Saltram’s counsel—­the counsel which
he would receive from every man of the world, no doubt—­the
counsel which he himself would most likely have given
to a friend under the same circumstances.

Sir David was very cordial, and wanted his visitor
to dine and sleep at Heatherly; but this Gilbert declined.
He was eager to get back to London now that his business
was finished.

He arrived in town late that night; and went back
to his office-work next day with a dreary feeling
that he must needs go through the same dull routine
day after day in all the time to come, without purpose
or hope in his life, only because a man must go on
living somehow to the end of his earthly pilgrimage,
whether the sun shine upon him or not.

He went to Queen Anne’s Court one evening soon
after his return, and told Mr. Nowell all he had discovered
at Wygrove. The old man showed himself keenly
interested in his grand-daughter’s fate.

“I would give a great deal to see her before
I die,” he said. “Whatever I have
to leave will be hers. It may be little or much—­I
won’t speak about that; but I’ve lived
a hard life, and saved where other men would have
spent. I should like to see my son’s child;
I should like to have some one of my own flesh and
blood about me in my last days.”

“Would it not be a good plan to put an advertisement
into the Times, addressed to Mrs. Holbrook,
from a relation? She would be likely to answer
that, when she would not reply to any appeal coming
directly from me.”

“Yes,” answered Jacob Nowell; “and
her husband would let her come to me for the sake
of what I may have to leave her. But that can’t
be helped, I suppose; it is the fate of a man who
lives as I have lived, to be cared for at last only
for what he has to give. I’ll put in such
an advertisement as you speak of; and we’ll
see what comes of it.”